1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a piece negative feeding apparatus for successively feeding one piece negative after another to an exposing section.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a negative film used in taking pictures with a camera is brought to a photo processing agent for simultaneous printing. At a developing laboratory, the negative film is developed and image frames rendered visible are printed on printing paper. The prints and the developed negative film are handed over from the photo processing agent to the customer. Prior to this, the negative film is cut into piece negatives each having four or six frames, and the piece negatives are put into a negative sheet. When additional prints are needed at a later date, the customer fills in a predetermined order form with image frames to be printed and the numbers of prints required, and brings the negative sheet containing the piece negatives along with the filled form to the photo processing agent (the unit of such additional prints being called an order also). The developing laboratory receives such order forms and negative sheets from varied photo processing agents. To make additional prints, i.e. to perform reorder processes efficiently, at the developing laboratory, as disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Laying-Open Publication S57-82332, an elongate film is formed by joining together numerous piece negatives to be additionally printed, with splicing tape, and with a leader tape inserted for each order which records positions of the frames to be additionally printed and numbers of additional prints to be made. The elongate film is fed continuously for exposure. After the exposure, the splicing tape must be separated from the elongate film, and the latter divided into the piece negatives again. It is a time-consuming operation to apply and separate the splicing tape. The continuous feeding of the elongate film provides a sufficient scale merit only when piece negatives in about 100 orders are joined together. Thus, delays tend to occur with additional printing processes.
On the other hand, an apparatus is known from Japanese Patent Publication S59-34291, which performs an exposing process by placing each negative sheet, i.e. each order, on a table and taking piece negatives to be additionally printed out of the negative sheet. This processing mode imposes a considerable burden on the operator since, for an exposing process of each order, the negative sheet must be removed from the table, and a new negative sheet must be placed thereon.
Further, Japanese Patent Laying-Open Publication S5642227 discloses an apparatus for successively inserting numerous piece negatives between an elongate tape wound up on a reel, and feeding the numerous pieces one after another in a reverse order by rewinding the elongate tape. Reorder information such as demarcations between the piece negatives in different orders is sequentially recorded on a separate magnetic tape. It is therefore necessary, in time of an exposing process, to run the magnetic tape to confirm the reorder information on the respective piece negatives. This apparatus has an inherent drawback that, in the event of the piece negatives going out of order due to a transport error or the like, the reorder information becomes inaccurate for succeeding processes.